The Hidden Ring
by Witchmaster
Summary: The elves once secretly created a ring powerful enough to counter the evil of Sauron, which they gave to Elennar, who defeated him once. This is the story of how she destroyed the Dark Lord as Frodo destroyed the ring and what she sacrificed for ME


Disclaimer: Tolkien wrote LOTR and all it's characters. But I wrote some things in here, such as the fourth ring and it's keeper. Ask before borrow! (oh, yes, we all know who the poem belongs to.)  
  
A/N: Unfortunately, I have never read the Silmarillion, so anything I write about history in Middle Earth is entirely based on what I know from the books, movies, and a few other references, i.e. other fanfics. Is this good or bad? Freedom to write what I want is nice, but people get pissy when you don't base stuff on what they've read.  
  
The Fourth Ring  
  
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Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,  
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,  
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,  
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne  
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.  
One Ring to rule them all. One Ring to find them,  
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them  
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.  
  
But no one knew of the hidden ring. The ring created by the elves once they began to feel the evil of the One Ring. They made it in starlight and pure fire, created it without a shadow ever falling across it. Forged of the purest mithril, the outside of the ring looked to be made of overlapping silver leaves. On the smooth inside, carefully carved runes, visible only when under the light of the stars, proclaimed to the world its purpose: "Good must balance every evil". They called the ring Quendical, the Light of the Elves.  
  
For the One Ring's evil, the fourth ring of the elves had purity. For the greed brought by the One Ring, the fourth ring had generosity. For the thirst for power inspired by the One Ring, the fourth ring gave its bearer strength of heart. For despair, it gave hope. Quendical allowed its bearer to see in the minds of others. The One Ring allowed its wearer to become invisible to most eyes in Middle-Earth. And where the One forced a soul into darkness, the fourth could make all but the darkest evil pure.  
  
But the elves did not foresee the difficulties of wielding such a power. Purity, it would seem, became a double- edged sword. Evil must be checked, but good must also be balanced. But the hidden ring would allow no evil to remain in the soul of its bearer. It rejected every wielder who attempted to control its stunning power. It became clear that no being alive could control such a force.  
  
Then, one of the three elves who had forged the ring had a vision. She saw a child, an elven girl. The babe shown with a pure light, but that light masked something darker that flickered through its purity. And she knew this child would be able to control the pure strength of Quendical, for she understood the white light to be the light of the ring, where the shadowy background was the child's irrepressible spirit. The hidden ring would find its equal.  
  
The girl was born not many months later, in early spring. The mother died in childbirth, so unusual for an elf, the father was nowhere to be found. The forger's found the child in the last of the winter snows, surrounded by a small patch of green in the middle of a field of white. She lay quietly in the starlight and they would not have found her if not for the calling of the ring to the babe. They named her Elennar, Starfire, both for the fiery spirit that must have kept the child warm as she lay in the starlight and for the forging of what would become her strongest weapon, the fourth ring. Only a hundred years later, the last alliance of men and elves marched against Mordor.  
  
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"Tangado haid! Leithio i philinn!" Elennar heard Lord Elrond's distant cry across the battlefield. She fired her bow into the fast approaching ranks of the orcs, then dropped to the ground to allow those behind her to do the same. She rolled and tossed the bow aside, coming up in front of the first orc with her pair of scimitars drawn. The unfortunate beast fell before he knew what had hit him. A half-wild smile on her face, the young she-elf spun to meet her next opponent, if these clumsy creatures could be called that.  
  
It was only a hundred years to the day that she had been found, but she could already outfight most of the older elves. None were sure why, though some suspected Quendical had something to do with it. Elennar, however, knew it had nothing to do with her ring and she didn't much care either way. All she knew was that fighting was fun and easy for her.  
  
Instinctively, she ducked seconds before an orc arrow flew where her head had been. Her twin blades knocked away the spear being thrust at her, then knocked the head from the spear's owner. Her raven hair whipped behind her as she whirled to face another attacker. She was raising her weapon to strike, when she staggered, as if hit by an invisible force. The ring hanging around her neck vibrated with warning. She fell to her knees, her weapons slipping from suddenly limp fingers. The orc snarled gleefully - a snarl that became a cry of pain as a sword slid through its back. The elf holding the weapon gave it a savage twist before jerking it back out of the dying body.  
  
Elennar pushed herself to her feet, picking up her weapons. "Hannon le," she said to the other elf, who nodded and turned back to the battle. Elennar sheathed one of her scimitars and jerked the fourth ring from her neck, putting it on quickly. Her mind was immediately assaulted by the mental cries of the thousands of beings there on that field. Drawing both her weapons once more, she unconsciously began to defend herself as she sorted through the noise in her mind, searching for one voice. When she found it, she nearly stumbled again. She turned toward an area far across the field where the battle had drawn to a near standstill. In the midst of all this stood Sauron. Even from that distance, she could feel the evil that radiated from him and his precious ring. His thoughts filled her mind with a dirty, oily sensation, which she blocked out as best she could.  
  
Even as she watched, she saw a human she recognized even from that distance, Isildur, struck out at the Dark Lord with a broken blade. As a glint of gold caught the little light coming through the clouds, she felt the halving of something incredibly powerful. And even as Sauron drew back with a shriek, she had already begun to speak.  
  
Thrusting her fist into the air, she cried " Quendical met hi morval! Lasto nin, raukohuine, kello hi Endorenna!" Quendical began to pulse with white light as Sauron's body began to glow as if being burnt from within. Everything seemed to pull towards him in that moment. But only Elennar heard his unspoken words.  
  
'Be prepared for me, she-elf. The Dark Lord does not forget those who have challenged him' he seemed to hiss into her mind.  
  
With a resounding crack, his power was released in a wave that physically knocked over all standing in the field, but slammed Elennar so hard mentally that she collapsed to the ground, unconscious.  
  
She stayed in that state for more than three weeks. When she woke, she learned that the human had not destroyed the ring as was necessary. She knew then she would face Sauron again.  
  
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Tangado haid! Leithio i philinn ~ Hold [your] positions! Fire the arrows!  
  
Hannon le ~ Thank you  
  
Quendical met hi morval! Lasto nin, raukohuine, kello hi Endorenna ~ Light of the elves, end this dark power! Listen to me, dark demon, be gone from this Middle Earth!  
  
I apologize for my butchering of the elven language. I also apologize for the length of this chapter. Hopefully there will be longer stuff in the future.  
  
Review please, whether you like it or not!  
  
~~ WM 


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